


Bullshit

by Lasgalendil



Series: Howling Commandos [3]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Howling Commandos, Enemies to Friends, First Meetings, Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Period-Typical Racism, Podfic Welcome, Swearing, aggressively atheist jim morita
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: Jim Morita died serving his country....as an atheist, the afterlife is NOT what he was expecting. Let alone stuck in a cattle car with these assholes.





	Bullshit

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: racism/slurs, ableism, war time violence, and HaShoah/Holocaust mentions.

The first time Jim Morita had the misfortune to meet one Sergeant James Barnes, 107th Infantry, US Army, his only thought was he'd died and lost Pascal's goddamn Wager.

His mom was a Buddhist. His father, noncommittal. Jim went to UCSF and studied science. Studied _medicine_. Jim, was, of course, an atheist.

"Huh," Jim said when he woke up. He appeared to be rattling around in a train car, standing, pressed in from all sides until he could barely breathe. It smelt like shit, and he was freezing his fucking balls off. If he had to have been wrong about the afterlife—Heaven, Hell, Paradise, Jahannam, etc., then at least he could take consolation that every religion he'd heard of had been wrong, too.

And then--a horrible thought---oh, dear Darwin. He'd been reincarnated. As a cow.

“Ugh, really. _Buddhism_ —?” Jim lamented. He hoped his mom's priest a long and virtuous life and nirvana because the man's smugness would be _insufferable,_ the bastard. He'd spent the better part of his teens arguing with the man, and couldn't bear an 'I told you so, Jim' on the cosmic scale. But that was karma for you, he thought. Jim Morita wanted nothing to do with religion, thank you, so the universe rebirthed him after death just to fuck with him. Spiteful bitch.

"Well, I'll be damned," someone said. “He’s alive."

Ah. Not dead, then?

"Not if I have anything to say about it," another grumbled. "Damned Jap has it coming."

"Lay off it, Dugan."

"What, you gone and forgot about Pearl Harbor?"

...Okay. So stuck on a cattle car with GI Jap-killer. The whole dead/hell/possible being a cow thing was starting to look like the preferable alternative.

"Someone tell Sarge!"

"Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Moses like I didn't hear you two squawking already," a third voice cut in. "Lemme take a look at 'im."

There was a rustling, a shuffling of feet. Not a few murmured curses. But two of the men beside him stood stock still. On second thought, they weren't even breathing. He felt hands on his face not a moment later, interrupting his thoughts. "You with me, pal?"

...alright. So what, then? This was hell? And the devil spoke English. With a Brooklyn accent. _Sure, Jim_.

"Not hell, then," Jim mumbled to himself. "Not a cow, either."

"Damn. That shot rattled you good, huh, soldier?"

"This a hospital car?" he asked doubtfully. Might explain the smell, at least.

“Whaddya know, stop the presses. The Great Casey has struck out," that voice continued with a low whistle. "Say, pal, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"I dunno, smartass. Try turning on a goddamn light, then we'll see."

"Well, shit," the Devil’s Decidedly Much Less Menacing Kid Brother With A Brooklyn Accent said. "You can't see 'em, huh? What's the last thing you remember?"

The last thing he remembered? The last thing he remembered was the scouting party going down around him in a burst of machine gun fire, Oshiro’s guts hanging out in strands, still staggering. Then that goddamn grenade--

"Fuck," Jim said, feeling along the back of his head. He winced, withdrew his hand. And yeah, that was a lump the size of a grapefruit, tender, oozy, and fucking throbbing. The edges of the flesh were burnt. He was, he decided, in a state of shock, and that's why waking up concussed, in the cold, packed in like sardines among strange soldiers—some of whom were suspiciously stiff and silent—and without his sight had yet to bother him. Any moment now, any moment, and the epinephrine would kick in, send him into a blind panic (…ha?) "Cephalohematoma."

There was a collective intake of breath. "Fucking Jap!" The living bodies pressed about him--keeping him upright, he soon discovered--pulled away. He'd have fallen, but even with this withdrawal there wasn't room to stagger. Even the dead men hardly swayed.

Someone caught him. The Sergeant. "I uh, don't wanna speak for anyone else hear, pal, but I don't speak Japanese.”

"It's Greek, Sarge," an unusually deep voice chimed, somewhere from his left.

"Here that, Dum Dum? It's Greek. You can quit your mutiny, now."

"Ain't mutiny, 's common sense," this 'Dum Dum' sniffed, whoever he was. "We're in Germany, we find a Jap, he's a spy."

"We were in Italy, asshole, and we found a whole load of dead soldiers,” the Sergeant’s voice cut across him harshly. “US and Nazis alike. Take a look at the uniform. He’s one of us.”

"So?" Dum Dum harrumphed. "Ask him which division. Bet he couldn't tell ya."

"And if he can't tell me,” the Sergeant continued, ignoring him, “it's cause he took a goddamn bullet to the head. Scrambled his brains a bit."

"442nd. Well, 100th, you coprocephalic,” Jim scowled in a general Dum Dum-like direction. There was a snort from Jones. "Got deployed early on account of my skill set." Ten years in the BSA and the first Eagle Scout from the Sequoia Council, fuckers. Jim Morita might be a city boy but he was also an Army Ranger. "And it wasn't a bullet, far as I remember. It was shrapnel."

“Still think he’s a spy,” Dum Dum muttered.

"Nah, pal," this Sergeant said, gripping his shoulder tightly. "The damn thing went clear through your helmet, still stuck in your skull when we pulled you outta the mud."

"Why did we pull him out of the mud," Dum Dum asked.

"--someone wanted you dead. My guess? Whoever blew you up wanted to make sure they finished the job."

And if Fritz had time to put a bullet in his skull, at close range, well. It was enough to know the rest of the them didn't make it out. "Here I am," Jim shrugged. They’d given the Ratzis hell, took down ten for every man they’d lost. "Joke's on them, I guess."

"Wouldn't say that," the Sergeant grunted. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Morita. Private James Morita, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, US Army.”

There was a collective groan. Racist fucks.

Then—“Goddamnit," someone sighed. "Not another one."

"Well, huh. Welcome to the club," the Sergeant said, gripping tightly then letting go of his shoulder. "I'm Sarge. This here's Jacques."

"Bon jour.”

“What? Free French are here, too?”

“Pal, there’s a bit of everybody here but the Ruskies. I'm Sergeant Barnes. Men call me Sarge. We got ourselves another good two dozen or so Jameses, and that’s just this car. That’s what you get for making a Regiment outta mostly Irish Catholics. Half of ‘em are James, and the rest of ‘em are Patricks,” he sighed. “Alright, Morita. Welcome to the 107th. I'm the poor schmuck stuck with A company, an' seeing how I'm the last officer standing, now the rest of these sorry souls. You included."

"Brooklyn, right?" Jim said. "Irish?"

"Yeah," this Sergeant Barnes said, while Dum Dum growled, "You got a problem with it?"

"Yeah, thought so," Jim said, rubbing his neck. "Which means you're not my anything."

"Excuse me, soldier?"

"You're white. Whole regiment is white. Pretty sure whatever else you might be, you ain't my CO."

"Huh," the low voice said. Jones? "Wish _I'd_ thought of that."

“Oh, shut it, Jonesey-boy, I outrank and outclass you,” Barnes laughed. "Backwards and in heels, even! An’ like hell I’m white, pal. I’m Irish and Jewish. You ever been to New York, champ? Sides, is now really the time?"

"I dunno. Seein' how I can't see shit, this isn't a rescue car, and at least two of the guys next to me haven't breathed since I woke up, well,” Jim shrugged, and forced a grin. “Now might be the only time I got. Go for broke.”

"Say, Morita?”

"Yeah, Sarge?"

"Either you're one cool cat, pal, or that head injury's worse 'an I thought."

And that, Jim would tell his kids and his grandkids and their kids, was the story how their old dad/grandad met Captain America's old pal, Bucky Barnes, in a shit-stained cattle car in the dead of winter, huddling together, surrounded by their own dead, heading off to a genuine Nazi concentration camp.

"Then what, Grandpa Jim?"

"Then that idiot Rogers bumbled in, blew the whole place up, came back carrying Barnes just like a Princess."

"And they kissed and lived happily ever after the end?"

"Sure, champ.”

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

...And that was also the story of how Grandpa Jim got a talking to from his second youngest granddaughter. Not for the whole swearing or gay marriage thing, but for telling her kids that Jesus wasn’t real, but Steve Rogers sure as hell was. So it was Easter Sunday. Big deal! “Hey, kiddo. Don’t blame me,” Jim said and sipped his beer. “It’s not my fault the man rose from the dead.”

“Technically, ma’am,” Rogers blushed, healthy and hale as ever even here in 2012. “I was only cryogenically frozen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Racism/slurs: The 107th has a rough time integrating Morita into their unit.  
> Ableism: Morita wakes up blinded by a head injury, and consoles himself by making self-deprecatory jokes.  
> War time violence: Morita remembers an attack and losing his friends from the 442nd/100th.  
> HaShoah/Holocaust: Morita discusses his time in a labor camp to his family. 
> 
> Jim "Okay" Morita never gets enough love. He has only four M-616 comics appearances, 8 lines of dialogue in CA:tFA, and around 2:38 of screen time in CA:fTA. See: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Jim_Morita_(Earth-616)/Appearances.
> 
> In 2009, UCSF was the first public university in California to bestow honorary degrees to former students who went through internment. More than 700 students were affected in 1942 after EO 9066 was signed into law. While some students returned to their studies after the war, the majority did not. Many of these honorary degrees were awarded posthumously: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/12/3134/ucsf-awards-honorary-degrees-former-wwii-internees1.
> 
> Atheism and secularism in the United States have been and continue to be controversial due to the long-standing entrenchment of so-called “Christian” values in US politics and culture. You know, because Jesus was all for mass incarceration of ethnic minorities, tax breaks for billionaires, kicking out immigrants, and police murdering unarmed black teens. Oh, yeah, and he was also a rabid white supremacist. Just like Nick Spencer writing Magneto and Steve Rogers!
> 
> Further reading:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager#Inability_to_believe
> 
> The Scopes Monkey Trial occurred in 1925, and the final verdict guaranteed the right of educators to include evolution in their public school science curriculum. It was turned into an award winning play Inherit in The Wind in 1955. On April 22nd, 2017, scientists and science allies across the world marched to continue to fund, teach, and tell the truth in response to attacks on vaccines, evolution, and climate change coming from the highest levels of the US government. In addition, information on climate change has been deleted from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. 
> 
> Further Reading:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherit_the_Wind_(play)  
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/28/epa-website-removes-climate-science-site-from-public-view-after-two-decades/?utm_term=.338c552d756d
> 
> Originally published in 1888, Casey At The Bat is one of America’s best-known poems. It was made into a silent film of the same name in 1927, and you can be sure Brooklyn Dodgers fans for life Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers saw it as kids. 
> 
> Further reading:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat
> 
> Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): Despite what they show you in the movies, any injury that knocks you unconscious has the potential to be fatal, or have life-altering consequences. Trauma to the occipital lobe (the back of the head) can lead to blurry vision or blindness until (and if) the swelling heals. The concussion may also cause nausea, vomiting, loss of coordination, stupor, and coma. The problem with Hollywood isn’t that “people can brush off a severe head injury”, because it does happen in medicine…it’s the percentage who do vs. don’t and the time frame necessary to heal/percent of pre-injury function is greatly exaggerated on screen. By far the best example of head injury treated right on film is the Swedish Luftslottet som sprängdes/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, starring Noomi Rapace. 
> 
> Cephalohematoma is exceptionally rare in adults, usually found only in cases of inherited cartilage disorders or severe head trauma. It is a bleed between the thin membrane covering the skull bones (“periosteum”, because everything sounds more science-y in Greek/Latin.) and the bone itself. It is limited to a specific bone plate, and the building up of pressure in that space will eventually stop the bleed. 
> 
> Coprocephalic (English from Greek roots): shithead
> 
> Go For Broke: motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Infantry Battalion. It was comprised of Japanese-American soldiers, the most decorated unit in the history of the United States military and only to keep its dual name. The 442nd were volunteers from the internment camps, and the 100th were Pacific Islanders of Japanese ancestry who had joined the US National Guard prior to Pearl Harbor. The 100th’s motto was “Remember Pearl Harbor.” The 442nd/100th joined the North African theater at Oran on September 3rd, 1943, and the European theater less than a month later at Salerno, Italy. 
> 
> Further reading: http://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/military_units/442nd.php  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_Infantry_Battalion_(United_States)


End file.
